Cubs reporter Andy Martinez enjoys first Father’s Day

CHICAGO – Saturday mornings at Wrigley Field before a traditional Cubs afternoon game in June are things out of a baseball storybook. The ivy in the brick outfield starts to turn green, and the field is flawlessly mowed into season’s form.

You can hear the traditional organ play as thousands of people trickle into the friendly confines. I had the pleasure of catching up with Marquee Network Cubs beat writer Andy Martinez.

The Chicago native recently started the most important job he will ever have. Martinez became a father to a beautiful baby daughter, Juliana. 

“I’m exhausted, but I love it,” Andy Martinez says. “I feel like I am consistently on short sleep, but it’s worth it.”  

The pregame chat, while never enough time to catch up, really made my day. I can clearly see the genuine joy his new role in fatherhood brings him. The story of holding his daughter and the unique feeling you will never know until you do it for the first time as a parent, as he said, was so refreshing and beautiful.

New routine

It highlighted what we in our cultura (culture) know as amor eterno – eternal love.

His new 3 a.m. human alarm clocks aren’t fun, of course. But they’re a new, beautiful reality that comes with welcoming a baby.

“I wake up and I am tired and exhausted,” Andy Martinez said. “And, of course, there is a part of me that is annoyed at having to wake up, but then I carry her and have her in my arms and look at her and she looks at me and it’s just a feeling of how could I ever get mad at you?”

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Fatherhood is special. I have the pleasure of knowing Andy’s father Federico, a Mexican immigrant from San Luis Potosi.

Today, the elder Martinez is happily retired after working hard honorably in a factory on Chicago’s south side and graduating four kids from college. Often on Facebook I see him proudly post Andy’s stories, showing the world his son’s latest from Wrigley’s press box.

Having a son whose job is to cover one of the most prominent sport franchises in the world from humble beginnings is quite the reward for the hard work and sacrifice Mr. Martinez made for his family.

Like his dad, Andy Martinez knows well the value of work in anything he does. But today on his first Father’s Day he knows that the toughest task is ahead in the hardest gig he’ll ever do, and that is the blessing of being a father to “JJ”.